(04-02-2013 04:16 PM)Luminon Wrote: Are you willing to share some of them? Just out of curiosity. I get it if you don't want to. Some things are just too crazy and weird to share.

Share some hallucinations? Yeah sure. Most of mine have been voices, they don't get too deep. The longest lasting one said 3-4 things. I honestly can't even really remember what was said that time though. "Hello" was first, then "hey you", and I think it said my name next. Then there are other times where I have heard my name. One ocassion where I was lying in bed and all of a sudden it was like a stadium full of people started screaming. One other time was where I heard screaming, sounded like two men. Then there are the incidents where I had sleep paralysis, I had delusional beliefs about those experiences as well. The visual hallucinations of those events didn't exceed an outline of a being. But I could heard ticking from some kind of being, a lot like the noise the predator makes (from the move Predator), those were the scariest experiences of my life.

(04-02-2013 04:16 PM)Luminon Wrote: I don't know if you are wrong. I have theories on how to test, but we face diffculties that no other tests face. Here the instrument is a person, a nerve system. It is not a standardized nerve system. To be absolutely sure, I'd need a trained person, like those who used to run the website psipog.net and related forums. I'd need to meet them in IRL and run training and testing sessions to set up a reliable method of sending/detection. The problem is logistics, to find a person and bring him halfway across the world. I had such observations happen on a few occasions, but the circumstances were not under my control. I couldn't choose people, time, activity...
I'm better off just trying to get a brain scan in short term. As I see it, it's a work or hobby for many years, a great work in progress. You come in the middle of the work and ask for finished results. It's a question of time, coincidence, being at right place and right time, meeting the right people who can offer services or real advice, etc. While I have lots of other things to do, more necessary for my life and political situation in my country.

Indeed, the problem is that unless the tests can be run under laboratory conditions, and the tests prove conclusive that it is real, there is no evidence of it's existence past your subjective experience.

(04-02-2013 04:16 PM)Luminon Wrote: It's an exercise in pattern-matching. I am not completely sure, I know I lack a lot of information, but I'm highly committed to the working hypothesis that I have, because it works. It gives results. Not objective scientific results unfortunately, but results of personal, psychologic and health value. Plus there is some inspiration for scientific theories. As I see it, this is my working hypothesis and my freedom/responsibility to follow it through with logic and dilligence. I see there is nothing in department of scientific explanations yet, so I'd be a fool to give my working hypothesis up for nothing. As I said, I'm in the middle of a work in progress, just checking up on science from time to time.

Unfortunately testing such as this only tests your subjective experience of the phenomena. Indeed it would be unwise to give up well thought out hypothesis. But the potential of the hypothesis being based on hallucinatory sense of touch caused by unique wiring of the brain is obvious. What I would do is to find a way to fun objective tests as soon as possible so you can figure that out. In the mean time I wouldn't spend all my time doing research or coming up with theories that will only benefit you or be potentially accurate if what you are percieving has an external and objective cause.

(04-02-2013 04:16 PM)Luminon Wrote: Even if I never managed to get in touch with science despite of my effort, the value of my working hypothesis could be proven by its positive effect on my life. Let's say I'd be demonstrably better off studying Theosophy, than let's say the followers of Thelema, Wicca or LaVeyan Satanism, Christianity and so on, better off perhaps than the clear sample of atheists.

Indeed, subjectively the important thing is that your happy and have a good life. If that's the main goal then keep on rolling. If the goal is to come up with scientific advancements or to assist in scientific advancements, you have to be aware of the possibility that what you percieve is only a part of your subjective reality. Even still if option one is your main goal you may still assist science in a way by having your brain scanned and being a test subject

(04-02-2013 04:16 PM)Luminon Wrote: I can not conclusively say what is or isn't out there. It's just impossible. Our visible matter is just about 4 % of the universe, the next 20 % is a substance that isn't visible and passes through solid objects. Under such circumstances I am not competent to say what is or isn't there, especially if it follows me every day. I can not deny a phenomenon, as long as it is clear and self-consistent and going on right now, right here in the present. As long, as it behaves logically and consistently, as a real thing would. I could reject chaotic and temporary hallucinations right away, that would be easy, but this is just not the case.

Yes it is obviously not a temporary hallucination if it persists. It could also be that you feel it behaves logically and consistently just like everything else in the real world, because you grew up with it. Your perception was influenced by it, and you attribute it as an aspect of the real world already. So your understanding of the real world probably already includes it. It is impossible at this time to say definitely what is out there and what is not, so assuming we have the right answer is never a good thing scientifically speaking.

(04-02-2013 04:16 PM)Luminon Wrote: Quite opposite! You have a great chance to change my mind. All you have to do is to provide a specific information. Show me some science, that addresses specifically this phenomenon. It's very stable, predictable and clearly defined phenomenon, not like any random delusions that people have.

Thing is various people have unique hallucinations, and can't be related in any way other than that the percieved hallucination is not caused by something outside the brain. The link you gave in the last post mentions some things about somatic hallucination.

1. A common tactile hallucination is feeling like something is crawling under or on the skin (also known as formication). Other examples include feeling electricity through one's body and feeling like someone is touching one's body but no one is there.

2. Also I remember reading/hearing about people that felt objects as if they were an extension of their body. I will try to find information on this.

Your condition is a bit of a combination of the examples given on the website and of the second example. Since your brain is wired differenlty, it would no doubt be difficult to find someone else that has the same experiences, perhaps something similar.

(04-02-2013 04:16 PM)Luminon Wrote: For example, there is a plenty of research on tactile hallucinations, but they're cases like feeling insects crawling under skin. If I had this hallucination and really believed there are insects under my skin, you could easily change my opinion by linking me towards a cocaine research. Let's say there's a paper on how our ancestors hunted for termites in savanna and they had to feel them crawling on them, so they could run away before they get bit too much. And this primitive and dormant brain center devoted to detecting crawling termites can now be stimulated by a chemical released when people take cocaine. And I'll say, "Ah, so the cocaine is the cause, not real insects! I always sort of wondered about it, when I was sober. Thanks, it's kinda unpleasant, so I might want to stop snorting the coke. Right. Point taken, I'll make sure to show the study to my friends."

But what you offer, is essentially nothing. No specific explanation. I admire science greatly, but only when it addresses the point. Absence of research is not an evidence of absence. Instead you come in like FDA and say that I am forbidden from making my own investigation, with instruments and sources I have and with objective logic and pattern-matching. That I am forbidden to have a hobby and I must wait till someone, somewhere scrapes together a few million dollars and does the test. What is it that you propose? You want me to give up my hobby of Theosophy, renounce the delusions, repent and pay tithes to NASA? I don't know why. I'm free to study any possible explanation. I will either keep it in mind as a working hypothesis, or I will reject it, because it does not fit the observation.
Saying just "some circuit in your brain probably does something", that's a very poor argument. You don't like when people believe vague claims, yet this is exactly what you want me to do. You don't say what circuit, why, how it works and where are some studies on even remotely similar cases. If you want me to embrace science, first there must be some science on the topic.

I did not intend for you to take what I say and change your opinion, my intention was to try to make you realize other people that have delusions reshape and misinterpret information unconsciously to support their delusion. This is the sole reason a delusion is so difficult to get rid of. It's like a christian with god, they can't imagine the world not having a god. those that hold a false belief or are delusional do not have objective logic, it is twisted to fit the delusion.

You can do whatever you want, there is no way for me to stop you across the internet and I don't have any intention of doing so. This is a website where we analyse claims, and that is what I have done. Thus far I have seen you say nothing that convinces me that your not just another person with a delusional belief caused by subjective experiences.

I've wondered about the subject myself. I was never deeply religious, even when I did identify as a catholic, yet because I couldn't grasp the concept of nonexistence, I very firmly believed in an afterlife. After I tossed out my christian beliefs, the idea of an end bothered me and I began to come up with theories of my own that would allow me to continue onwards after death. Most of them were extremely ridiculous and I easily shot them down with evidence to the contrary.(I tried to convince myself that because you cannot destroy matter or energy, only transfer it into another form of it, that our conciousness was somehow recycled into a newly born human being. It was stupid because the matter and energy that made up the conciousness would have no method of reaching a newborn and since conciousness is simply a process created by the brain, and not matter or energy itself, it simply ceases after the matter fueling the process had taken a new form. Crazy stuff.)

Eventually I simply conceded and used the logic that since we won't be there to feel anything, we won't even realize we're dead and we will be inable to decide whether or not we enjoy or unenjoy it, so we really have no reason to say that death without an afterlife is a bad thing.

(04-02-2013 11:57 PM)pppgggr Wrote: I've wondered about the subject myself. I was never deeply religious, even when I did identify as a catholic, yet because I couldn't grasp the concept of nonexistence, I very firmly believed in an afterlife. After I tossed out my christian beliefs, the idea of an end bothered me and I began to come up with theories of my own that would allow me to continue onwards after death. Most of them were extremely ridiculous and I easily shot them down with evidence to the contrary.(I tried to convince myself that because you cannot destroy matter or energy, only transfer it into another form of it, that our conciousness was somehow recycled into a newly born human being. It was stupid because the matter and energy that made up the conciousness would have no method of reaching a newborn and since conciousness is simply a process created by the brain, and not matter or energy itself, it simply ceases after the matter fueling the process had taken a new form. Crazy stuff.)

I suggest you look at this post. We are so used to us being around and seeing things happen, that the idea of non-existence is quite unimaginable. However, it can be experienced.

(04-02-2013 11:57 PM)pppgggr Wrote: Eventually I simply conceded and used the logic that since we won't be there to feel anything, we won't even realize we're dead and we will be inable to decide whether or not we enjoy or unenjoy it, so we really have no reason to say that death without an afterlife is a bad thing.

Yes, we may logically assume it's like falling asleep into a dream we won't remember and won't wake from. Also, the idea of keeping away the death indefinitely is kind of lame, who would want to stay old forever? A good showman should know when to end the show.

Just promise me, if you die and find yourself in a kind of afterlife, please react and change your mind. I have read a couple of books where astral travellers stumbled upon people's spirits who were "dead", but did not know that, did not want to accept that, or did not want to go on (religious people afraid of hell, thinking they're not good enough to go to heaven). In worst cases, they were so convinced of their own non-existence after death, that they insisted on doing nothing and being properly non-existent as a good rational spirit should

Now, I must go off and become comatose for several hours, hallucinate vividly and then experience amnesia about the whole thing..

The people closely associated with the namesake of female canines are suffering from a nondescript form of lunacy.
"Anti-environmentalism is like standing in front of a forest and going 'quick kill them they're coming right for us!'" - Jake Farr-Wharton, The Imaginary Friend Show.

(04-02-2013 04:24 PM)Aspchizo Wrote: I understand that patterns is something Aspies tend to pick up on, but what your saying doesn't make sense. Patterns of sensations, ok maybe that could happen and make sense. But patterns of explanations? I think you need to expand on what you mean by that because It went right over my head.

A "pattern of explanation" might be anything - a body map of organs, bones and nerves, a mechanism of perception, wiring of nerves, hormone reaction mechanism, anything specific that corresponds in some way to the feelings. For example, there is a partial correspondence between seven major chakras and main endocrine glands. It might be interesting to measure their activity and health in people claiming that a corresponding chakra is open and active. For example, I'd love to have my pineal and pituitary gland scientifically measured, they feel quite busy.

(04-02-2013 04:24 PM)Aspchizo Wrote: "Furthermore, my judgement is bound by events, in which other people or I independently, objectively reacted to the energy."
It's not objective if you reacted to it, if another person got pushed by it or was lifted into the air by it, then that's a different story. But you would still need it on video, even if they came forward we would be skeptical.

Give an example of when someone else reacted to it.

Yeah. I perform a group meditation for years. We sit down in a darkened room, relax, chant a little and meditate for a couple of hours. In the beginning we do some relaxing visualizations to get into the mood. Once someone said something like "you should try to feel connected with all the people here". Which in my interpretation was to "extend the field" that I feel to be surrounded by, together with the invisible plasma that is usually condensated and floating in it. I just spread it around basically, following the vague New Agey instruction. Then we all meditated as usual.
After the meditation, a girl came to me, who sat in a chair near me during meditation. She said that in the beginning of meditation she felt like she got covered by a layer of some foamy, oozy substance and that I should be more careful. The girl knew a little of what I'm about, she was from the group, so she wasn't scared or surprised, just a little annoyed, I think. She said the substance sort of went away after a while and told me to watch out next time, that's all.

(04-02-2013 04:24 PM)Aspchizo Wrote: I put those side by side so you could compare protecting your delusion with attacking mine Delusions people hold seem insane to others don't they?

Like I said, when we are deluded we accept things as evidence that normally wouldn't be evidence. We shape the information or our delusion to fit together, and we don't do this consciously. I know this because this is exactly what I did with my dark matter theories. It can be stricly defined and still be subject to change, your interpretation of it can easily change to fit what you read.

50/50 was theoretically beatiful because of my understanding of virtual particles. The universe may have appeared out of nothing, and virtual particles appear out of nothing. Virtual particles are always a matter-antimatter pair. So I felt justified in the assumption that there would be equal amounts of both. The point is that we find all kinds of ways to justify our beliefs, some of which are insane. If we believe our ideas and theories before they are objectively proven then they are completely useless and bare no ground in reality.

As for the rest, is it really a delusion? Isn't seeing things first hand a powerful, compelling influence?

(04-02-2013 04:24 PM)Aspchizo Wrote: How would it be completely different? as you just said no force ever essentially changes, yet prior you said that dark matter would give a completely different effect on earth. How are you justified in making this assumption?

This is no mystery. Gravity is a force that reaches very far away, whole light years, yet it is very weak, it needs a lot of mass to show up. Without a necessary mass, it's negligible - like on quantum level. Other forces have a small or even microscopic/quantum reach, but they're comparatively extremely strong, they don't need much mass, a single particle like proton or electron is enough to summon them. Yet, such forces have very short reach.
Thus naturally, some circumstances favor a long, weak force like gravity to be measured, like through gravity lensing in astronomical vastness of outer space and immense quantities of mass. But other forces, like electric or nuclear, need a very small scale, though very little mass, to be observed. You could not observe them at a distance of light years in outer space and you can't observe gravity on quantum level and hardly on the level of us. For example, we can't practically measure gravity between you and your computer. But we could measure a static charge between you and the screen.
Simply said, some circumstances (mass, distance) favor the expression and measuring of some natural forces and disfavor others.

(04-02-2013 04:24 PM)Aspchizo Wrote: You take them in a way that supports your hallucinatory sense of touch, which includes attributing them to the chakras which is completely non-scientific. The exact same as my theories of dark matter, not actually based in science, but I made myself believe it was.

I don't know if it's scientific or not, but it's a very logical choice. If there is a refutation, it must be also logical. If I have some complex, impressive observations, the refutation must be to the point, very likely it would be also an impressive thing. Therefore, I am curious about refutation.

(04-02-2013 04:24 PM)Aspchizo Wrote: I was implying that you relate the hallucinatory sense of touch with these things, your brain used them as a means of explaining the sense. The explanation you have and the way you think of the sense is because of the information you have been exposed to. The sense in question is subjective. Your interpretation and explanation of it are subjective realities that don't coincide with the objective one.

What objective reality? Who is the one subjective here? If I lived in ancient China or India, my perception would be taken as a normal thing and I'd be encouraged to take career of a healer or a yogi. They had and still have writings and body charts that describe independently what I perceive. There is even a scientific method of detecting these things, for example, I have successfully many times tried a diagnosis and prescription through EAV measuring of skin resistance. It And the Reich's or Provod's devices would offer more evidence.

With the arrival of science, we started constructing our worldview from scratch. What you consider an objective reality is actually a worldview positively constructed by peer-reviewed journals out of carefully done studies, in past couple of centuries. This is only admirable, but it's a cold start from the beginning. It's a very new, restricted view of the universe. It separates everything into neat little boxes, regardless of the underlying reality. Science means taking in only as much as we can get under control, which is not necessarily how the universe is arranged. My guess is, the universe of dark matter and energy is vastly different from our current knowledge, but much more similar to the ancient traditions. And we don't take this into our estimates. We think we do, but just because we know dark matter is out there in the space, doesn't mean we realize what it means that it is here and now, on Earth, in billions of years of concentration.

We know there is reality beyond science, only we don't know how to pin it down, how to separate it. You say that woo does not exist, I say even the woo-mongers don't know what is it that they do, and even they are not competent in arranging tests for the science. But they've been a part of tradition in touch with the reality beyond science for millenia. Science threw it all out because it didn't conform to the standard of evidence, it didn't give us the control. But then we need to somehow compensate for our voluntary, necessary self-imposed ignorance. Our wiped racial memory. We need to keep in mind that there is reality out there too and that it will come knocking in thousand different ways, unacceptable to the science, because uncontrollable. We need to be very open-minded and see the patterns, because the universe is not likely to always respect our separate branches of science. We may find cosmic influences that touch everything, from physics to biology, psychology, sociology and even history. Influences, that can not be pinned down by a single branch of science. I have a feeling that synthetic sciences are about to become very popular in the next century. I wouldn't be surprised if the concept of afterlife was introduced somewhere along the way, after a discovery of different matters, energies and dimensions.

Excuse me, but they feel quite real. It must be a strange idea to feel an open buzzing vortex wedged into one's skull just above eyebrows, but I got used to it. Sometimes it can be quite pleasant. (like right now) Sometimes it's one more thing that can hurt. Chakras are processors of energy and energy follows thought and thought follows the openness of chakras. It's a life style of... tweaking the nerve system? Evolving the consciousness? And in a way, it's a reminder how much the science still needs us to make it whole again.
If scientists knew of this, they would perhaps choose to meditate in groups out of curiosity.

Excuse me, but they feel quite real. It must be a strange idea to feel an open buzzing vortex wedged into one's skull just above eyebrows, but I got used to it. Sometimes it can be quite pleasant. (like right now) Sometimes it's one more thing that can hurt. Chakras are processors of energy and energy follows thought and thought follows the openness of chakras. It's a life style of... tweaking the nerve system? Evolving the consciousness? And in a way, it's a reminder how much the science still needs us to make it whole again.
If scientists knew of this, they would perhaps choose to meditate in groups out of curiosity.

There is no evidence of the existence of chakras. Your internal mental states are not evidence.

What, exactly, needs to be made whole?

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.

(05-02-2013 07:19 PM)Chas Wrote: There is no evidence of the existence of chakras. Your internal mental states are not evidence.

What, exactly, needs to be made whole?

I have an impression that when you speak of evidence, you speak of control over things. The power to make them show up any time we follow a particular procedure. But as you know, there are more degrees of awareness that precede the evidence and control, that precede even hypothesis. They are stages of ignorant observation or even less, a possible observation. At this stage many people introduced superstition, which was decidedly a bad step. It contaminated the knowledge.

However, the fact remains that the cultures of humanity amassed much primitive knowledge in form of ignorant observation. The science found itself unable to separate any possible observation from superstitious interpretation, so it ditched all the cultural stuff and started gathering a guaranteed, controllable knowledge from scratch. At the same time, it made a requirement of evidence (controllable). The first thing you ask is an evidence. This is a misunderstanding, for you evidence is the first thing before doing anything, for me it is the last thing, the goal of all investigation. I move in the pre-scientific stages, where I necessarily have little control over things.

According to the science, we shouldn't have any pre-conceived notions. But what if we investigate the cultural world? What if there is a knowledge of observation lost among the culture and superstition? There will necessarily be countless pre-conceived notions about it, many notoriously known. The science is therefore extremely hesitant in salvaging the cultural knowledge. I know there is a neurologic research of Buddhism, for example. Of meditational states. But I wish there was a neurologic research of Hinduism too - of endocrine glands and nerves, of functional and electric changes in them with progression towards "englightenment". Nothing should be held back, even biophoton emission should be studied in such people. Not just biophotons, all kinds of EM radiation and fields of the body. Without evidence, merely on the basis of ancient cultural observation. Evidence may or may not come up later. In real world, nobody can guarantee us evidence in advance.
Of course, it is something latently present in all people, but not active in most of them. The writings are clear on the progression towards enlightenment (whatever it turns out to be in scientific terms), but today few people are systematically working on it and even fewer are aware of it.

(05-02-2013 07:19 PM)Chas Wrote: There is no evidence of the existence of chakras. Your internal mental states are not evidence.

What, exactly, needs to be made whole?

I have an impression that when you speak of evidence, you speak of control over things. The power to make them show up any time we follow a particular procedure. But as you know, there are more degrees of awareness that precede the evidence and control, that precede even hypothesis. They are stages of ignorant observation or even less, a possible observation. At this stage many people introduced superstition, which was decidedly a bad step. It contaminated the knowledge.

However, the fact remains that the cultures of humanity amassed much primitive knowledge in form of ignorant observation. The science found itself unable to separate any possible observation from superstitious interpretation, so it ditched all the cultural stuff and started gathering a guaranteed, controllable knowledge from scratch. At the same time, it made a requirement of evidence (controllable). The first thing you ask is an evidence. This is a misunderstanding, for you evidence is the first thing before doing anything, for me it is the last thing, the goal of all investigation. I move in the pre-scientific stages, where I necessarily have little control over things.

According to the science, we shouldn't have any pre-conceived notions. But what if we investigate the cultural world? What if there is a knowledge of observation lost among the culture and superstition? There will necessarily be countless pre-conceived notions about it, many notoriously known. The science is therefore extremely hesitant in salvaging the cultural knowledge. I know there is a neurologic research of Buddhism, for example. Of meditational states. But I wish there was a neurologic research of Hinduism too - of endocrine glands and nerves, of functional and electric changes in them with progression towards "englightenment". Nothing should be held back, even biophoton emission should be studied in such people. Not just biophotons, all kinds of EM radiation and fields of the body. Without evidence, merely on the basis of ancient cultural observation. Evidence may or may not come up later. In real world, nobody can guarantee us evidence in advance.
Of course, it is something latently present in all people, but not active in most of them. The writings are clear on the progression towards enlightenment (whatever it turns out to be in scientific terms), but today few people are systematically working on it and even fewer are aware of it.

You continue to exhibit a misunderstanding of science. Evidence doesn't come first. Or last.

Imagination, hypothesizing, conceiving new things are key to the process of science. We wonder about something, we imagine what might be happening, we concoct ideas about it.

But first, we have to show that the something exists, then we investigate its properties. To say anything definite about 'it', we have to support the assertions with evidence. Evidence is objective and reproducible by others. That is why I aver that your internal states are not evidence.

You make unsupported assertions like "it is something latently present in all people".

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.